I am personally in favor of the 30 reroute. Not only would it help to reconnect the CBD with the Cedars, Fair Park and Deep Ellum, vice versa, it would also help development in the area by creating a more natural flowing cohesion. This plan includes rerouting 45 and 175 as well. Many of these neighborhoods were decimated as a result of these freeways cutting off their natural flowing street grid.

joshua.dodd wrote:I am personally in favor of the 30 reroute. Not only would it help to reconnect the CBD with the Cedars, Fair Park and Deep Ellum, vice versa, it would also help development in the area by creating a more natural flowing cohesion. This plan includes rerouting 45 and 175 as well. Many of these neighborhoods were decimated as a result of these freeways cutting off their natural flowing street grid.

I didn't really get that it would eliminate that section of I45, 175, and I345, but if that's the case, and you could eliminate any possibility of Trinity Tollway, than I could get on board. I'd also say we need to eliminate the possibility of any frontage roads through the green space. Elevated Freeway with minimal impact to nature below. Segments of PGBTP accomplish this quite well, so I know it can be done.

All of that will result in a net reduction of freeway miles. But, if it's simply rerouting I30 and leaving everything else in place... no way.

There's no reason these massive highways cannot be constructed for transportation, flood control and to support recreation --- other than the upfront cost of doing it differently. Flanking the wilderness, these structures can also serve as wildlife deterrents, helping to keep dangerous critters out of neighborhoods.

joshua.dodd wrote:I am personally in favor of the 30 reroute. Not only would it help to reconnect the CBD with the Cedars, Fair Park and Deep Ellum, vice versa, it would also help development in the area by creating a more natural flowing cohesion. This plan includes rerouting 45 and 175 as well. Many of these neighborhoods were decimated as a result of these freeways cutting off their natural flowing street grid.

A drive through "Uptown" Dallas proves your scenario is completely and thoroughly wrong! Woodall Rogers Freeway did not supress the economic growth of "Uptown" Dallas. It did not make an unconquerable divide between "Uptown" and "Downtown" Dallas. There were and are other intangible things causing the lack of economic growth in Cedars and other South and East Dallas neighborhoods.

Here's an idea, have someone study the reasons why Uptown is growing while Cedars isn't. I have a feeling that having a freeway in the neighborhood isn't going to be amongst the major reasons why.

joshua.dodd wrote:I am personally in favor of the 30 reroute. Not only would it help to reconnect the CBD with the Cedars, Fair Park and Deep Ellum, vice versa, it would also help development in the area by creating a more natural flowing cohesion. This plan includes rerouting 45 and 175 as well. Many of these neighborhoods were decimated as a result of these freeways cutting off their natural flowing street grid.

A drive through "Uptown" Dallas proves your scenario is completely and thoroughly wrong! Woodall Rogers Freeway did not supress the economic growth of "Uptown" Dallas. It did not make an unconquerable divide between "Uptown" and "Downtown" Dallas. There were and are other intangible things causing the lack of economic growth in Cedars and other South and East Dallas neighborhoods.

Here's an idea, have someone study the reasons why Uptown is growing while Cedars isn't. I have a feeling that having a freeway in the neighborhood isn't going to be amongst the major reasons why because all these neighborhoods have them.

joshua.dodd wrote:I am personally in favor of the 30 reroute. Not only would it help to reconnect the CBD with the Cedars, Fair Park and Deep Ellum, vice versa, it would also help development in the area by creating a more natural flowing cohesion. This plan includes rerouting 45 and 175 as well. Many of these neighborhoods were decimated as a result of these freeways cutting off their natural flowing street grid.

A drive through "Uptown" Dallas proves your scenario is completely and thoroughly wrong! Woodall Rogers Freeway did not supress the economic growth of "Uptown" Dallas. It did not make an unconquerable divide between "Uptown" and "Downtown" Dallas. There were and are other intangible things causing the lack of economic growth in Cedars and other South and East Dallas neighborhoods.

Here's an idea, have someone study the reasons why Uptown is growing while Cedars isn't. I have a feeling that having a freeway in the neighborhood isn't going to be amongst the major reasons why.

Huh? I think you completely missed the point of his statement.

Never did he say there was some sort of economic oppression caused by this highway that exist TODAY.... He said the highway cut off the neighborhood and that the neighborhoods were decimated by their construction..PAST TENSE. Which they were. This is not even debateable. The cedars, Freedman's Town (Uptown),Little Mexico (VP) all were established neighborhoods before the highways. Once Construction began, Private homes were taken away from people who once lived in these areas. After which, people fled these parts of town and thereafter these areas were neglected by the city..For years.

Here's a 1997 KERA documentary that shows what happened to Little Mexico when Highway construction started.

Now, regarding his point of spurring development by connecting these areas..Its a very vaild point and shouldn't be dismissed.. look at KWP..This little connection has spurred tremendous development. There's a desperate need for South Dallas to get some development even more so than the CBD.

A project of this nature may just very well be the best way to do it.

Last edited by Tivo_Kenevil on 21 Apr 2017 12:02, edited 3 times in total.

I still do not like building another highway, but I do still have that 'hum-just-maybe' feeling about a thru-traffic I-30.... like, the reroute of I-30 through East Dallas/Fair Park/South Dallas certainly would welcome to the Texas the opportunity for a hybrid highway-boulevard, combining the benefits of keeping some limited access recessed BRT/HOV/personal vehicle lanes reaching the Convnetion Center while the I-30 access roads are transformed into an actual boulevard for neighborhoods and rail services; cross-town and thru traffic swings around South Dallas and up to the mixmaster. Cargo vehicles would certainly use the whoop-around, maybe require it, but it sure could work.

A growing city will always find a way around a highway, absorb it. I like the barrier I-345 creates between East Dallas/Deep Ellum and downtown: a firm line setting two distinct neighborhood identities. The same neighborhood enhancing barrier is achieved with much greater success with a park, but if that highway is eliminated who is going to really push for a park? Maybe maybe not....

but either way, eliminating Julius Schepps & SW Wright highway from South Dallas and replacing I-345 with a park would be the absolute best thing for Dallas.

joshua.dodd wrote:I am personally in favor of the 30 reroute. Not only would it help to reconnect the CBD with the Cedars, Fair Park and Deep Ellum, vice versa, it would also help development in the area by creating a more natural flowing cohesion. This plan includes rerouting 45 and 175 as well. Many of these neighborhoods were decimated as a result of these freeways cutting off their natural flowing street grid.

A drive through "Uptown" Dallas proves your scenario is completely and thoroughly wrong! Woodall Rogers Freeway did not supress the economic growth of "Uptown" Dallas. It did not make an unconquerable divide between "Uptown" and "Downtown" Dallas. There were and are other intangible things causing the lack of economic growth in Cedars and other South and East Dallas neighborhoods.

Here's an idea, have someone study the reasons why Uptown is growing while Cedars isn't. I have a feeling that having a freeway in the neighborhood isn't going to be amongst the major reasons why.

Uptown's growth is due, primarily and largely, to the fact that Klyde Warren Park, built over Woodall Rogers, has increased land value while reconnecting the surrounding area from what was a freeway divide wasteland. You can find plenty of studies about this. Fact.

I'd have to say Katy Trail or MATA has had more influence on Uptown than KWPark. The Park is a strong incentive to fill in many of the adjacent parcels, but Uptown had been reaching toward adolescence before that park.... Uptown started 25 years ago....

Location and a nice TIF jumpstart, and really, KWPark might not have been possible if Uptown hadn't already proved itself....

^replacing Schepps and Wright with a boulevard and streetcar will lead the gentrification of South Dallas, situated between an actual big forest and downtown, South Dallas would become the among the most desirable residential locations in the South Central US.

tamtagon wrote:I still do not like building another highway, but I do still have that 'hum-just-maybe' feeling about a thru-traffic I-30.... like, the reroute of I-30 through East Dallas/Fair Park/South Dallas certainly would welcome to the Texas the opportunity for a hybrid highway-boulevard [...]

Something like that could work. Paris has six lane boulevard that run through the city. They're off set with wide tree lined side walks..No reason i30 couldn't be redone like that...Then just put mixed use buildings on both sides.. and you could have a nice boulevard and some promenades that shoot off into the neighborhoods for pedestrians.

IMO that Would be really cool. I can't think of any major city in Texas with something like that now that I think of it.

Tivo_Kenevil wrote: I can't think of any major city in Texas with something like that now that I think of it.

Dallas, does several times. Loop 12 in both north and south Dallas transfers between freeway and boulevard status. Dallas North Tollway does the same in uptown. Makes Harry Times very unfriendly for pedestrians.

tamtagon wrote:^replacing Schepps and Wright with a boulevard and streetcar will lead the gentrification of South Dallas, situated between an actual big forest and downtown, South Dallas would become the among the most desirable residential locations in the South Central US.

So let me get this straight, dissolve the connection between Central and I-45,and that traffic goes where? Through a fancy boulevard and stop lights? And that's improvement? 635 cannot absorb that traffic.

The I-30 is akin to what Ft.Worth did when they rebuilt the mixmaster, moving it further south. But it did not create whole sale chaos this plan will taking out I-345.

longhorn wrote:So let me get this straight, dissolve the connection between Central and I-45,and that traffic goes where? Through a fancy boulevard and stop lights? And that's improvement? 635 cannot absorb that traffic.

Believe me, I understand the confusion on this particular argument. It sounds counter intuitive for sure but a lot of innovations in science have come from similar thinking. Removing that connection will dissolve a significant amount of traffic in a good way which I know sounds crazy. Traffic engineers have found this to be true depending on how you implement the replacement system. In a deep urban area like a Downtown, there will be traffic backed up at 6pm that's life no matter the size road you build. We are wasting billions on building a road for two small times of day and every attempt at capacity increases with the highway model causes even bigger traffic snarls. City Planners and Traffic Engineers started figuring this out decades ago but its hard to turn the Titanic away from the iceberg that is our highway system.

Decades ago planners started doing things that seemed the opposite of the usual idea of making roads wider and faster and found that slowing things down, narrowing roads and promoting less commuter centric city infrastructure and zoning was the only real way to reduce traffic. Our current planners know this but they are stuck with a populace who doesn't understand it and an existing culture of roadway building that refuses to hear what is a reality that everything we did made it worse.

The only way we are gonna fix the gluttonous traffic problem is by losing weight by cutting back on the highway model dependency we currently have. Getting a bigger belt is what we have been doing since the 50's so it's time to realize those stretch pants can only go so far. The most effective solution to traffic is eliminating the things that encourage it to begin in the first place.

^ Sounds reasonable, but I'd imagine reducing roads would have to be an extremely slow process that would have to be coupled with increased density, increased public transportation, and increased pedestrian infrastructure.

One of our biggest hurdles, at the moment, is the high cost of living in the city. Hopefully we can continue to try and keep up with demand by building more density, and that might encourage more people to live within walking or biking distance to work. I realize this lifestyle isn't for everyone, but, it would be nice for it to be more affordable for those who do want it.

CowboyEagle05, your argument is all about getting rid of traffic. Why the hell would you want to do that? Traffic is a GOOD thing. Traffic is people and goods getting to where they want to be and/or where they are needed. Dallas is a major city specifically because of it's role as a major transportation, distribution and communications hub. Getting rid of traffic is easy -- just look at dying cities like Detroit, St. Louis and Cleveland. They've all done an excellent job of getting rid of traffic. And jobs. And people.

Hannibal Lecter wrote:CowboyEagle05, your argument is all about getting rid of traffic. Why the hell would you want to do that? Traffic is a GOOD thing. Traffic is people and goods getting to where they want to be and/or where they are needed. Dallas is a major city specifically because of it's role as a major transportation, distribution and communications hub. Getting rid of traffic is easy -- just look at dying cities like Detroit, St. Louis and Cleveland. They've all done an excellent job of getting rid of traffic. And jobs. And people.

CONGESTION is what is bad, not traffic.

You are limiting commerce and the movement of goods to individual cars carrying people. People move about fluidly without cars and so does their money for goods and services. Limiting your access to customers/commerce purely based on 70 mph pass through traffic and giant parking lots then you are severely limiting your access to a wider base of customers. It has been proven time and time again in study after study businesses that pay attention to access for a variety transportation options are more successful.

You mention several cities there that had economic failures and seem to suggest that was because they stopped people from using cars? Cause I went to school for city planning and we discussed Detroit at length and last time I checked the city that has the HQ for this countries largest car manufacturing business and are you saying they failed because they stopped using cars or because they had a very car centric policy?

The general consensus was not that cars were the root of their economic trouble but that the dependency on cars only furtherly eroded their economy as it supported a suburb model that the city government did nothing to counter with policies that would encourage jobs in the inner city, maintain the general tax base and an under educated workforce. This is, of course, a highly abridged version because for a whole city to fail like Detroit means more than just cars or one bad mayor.

I will agree to one thing you said traffic is good and congestion is bad. Too many streets in Dallas and even my hometown of Garland are designed to be cross town arterials while the smaller streets are designed to dead end traffic forcing people to only use a few routes through town. Too many streets are designed for rush hour and the rest of the day and users be damned.

Design streets for more than rush hour and one type of user and you will get a whole new economic environment one that can better balance multiple social economic types and reduce a need for wasteful on ramps, highway maintenance in inner cities, parking lots and the long list of inefficiencies that come from car dependency models.

I'll add what I have said since school Move People, Not Motors. We have to stop designing things around the movement of cars because the real root of the problem with congestion is the movement of people, not the cars themselves.

While moving people is grand, don't forget to move goods. Our economy is based upon making, and then moving the goods. Restaurants can't serve food and drinks if the food and drinks can't get to them.There's a reason why most interstate highways bypassed small cities and towns, but headed directly to central business districts in large cities. That's where the warehouses were located, because that's where the railroad yards were located. The old warehouses in the West End was located just north of downtown Dallas because that was where the railroad tracks were. And that's one of the reasons why the freeways were built there, so trucks could service those warehouses.

electricron wrote:While moving people is grand, don't forget to move goods. Our economy is based upon making, and then moving the goods. Restaurants can't serve food and drinks if the food and drinks can't get to them.There's a reason why most interstate highways bypassed small cities and towns, but headed directly to central business districts in large cities. That's where the warehouses were located, because that's where the railroad yards were located. The old warehouses in the West End was located just north of downtown Dallas because that was where the railroad tracks were. And that's one of the reasons why the freeways were built there, so trucks could service those warehouses.

I have no forgotten goods at all but merely suggested that we cater to both instead. Right now our accommodation of goods delivery helped create a car dependency that ultimately created a bottle neck that has ruined both commuter travel and snarled goods delivery by depending on bigger and bigger trucks being stuck on our inner city highway system amongst all the cars cutting them off and altogether making the delivery of goods dependent on how the car travelling public drives. Maybe smaller highways with limited access by cars? The current system has created bottle necks that only get worse every time we attempt to fix them. Maybe we should approach the delivery goods in our inner cities differently and some cities have already been solving that problem.

New article about an initial TxDOT proposal. It shows the same path as now, with the freeway sunken eastward to before Munger/Barry. The article says the initial plan takes a wider path for main lanes and service roads. The Cesar Chavez bridge would be straightened/simplified, and the new exit for 1st & 2nd Avenues would be combined into one overpass/exit at the freeway crossing. I can't tell any other major differences from it, other than a few properties mostly east of I-45 would be needed for the expansion, the biggest of which would be a chunk of the City's police parking and marshal complex. D Magazine is a bit dramatic about the tone of the article, but this isn't something set in stone. At least this plan includes something many have wanted--below grade freeway lanes between Deep Ellum and Fair Park.

I agree that the tone is quite dramatic, but I assume the intent is to push back as much as possible in order for TxDOT to meet us halfway with something better.

I don't understand these drawings since I'm not an engineer, but for example in the image below does it mean I-30 shrinks from its current footprint? What happens with the existing lanes north of the top green area? Also when you look at the plan for S. Harwood is that a reduction from the current four lanes to two lanes plus one turn lane and some skinny bike lanes? If so I think that's a huge missed opportunity for something better if we want to eventually connect the downtown parks along Harwood.

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I really don't understand the purpose of frontage roads through here. Instead, the objective should be fit as many main lanes in as small a corridor as possible, and sink that corridor. This should open the door to connecting the street grid above, and any on-ramps should go directly into that grid. This also allows 'holes' in the grid (over the fwy) to be capped later as parks, etc..I also can't stand 'median exits', and at first I couldn't believe that they kept one at Harwood. But after further review, these ramps appear specific to the toll lanes, and that actually makes sense. That said, it should still exit directly into the overall street grid... perhaps Griffin.

Considering the frontage roads look like they would be largely sunk and disconnected from the surface level I tend to agree but we all know why frontage roads exist. Two reasons; suburbs believe they create economic development and the state wants more lanes so you can throw 6 lanes of freeway up and 4 lanes of the frontage road and you now have a combined capacity of 10 lanes. In the suburbs, the frontage roads serve more local traffic wanting to move just down the road which is one of the biggest snarls of freeways is people getting on and off for relatively short trips that should be regulated to local roads. People jumping out on frontage roads to move from one disconnected shopping center to the next creates backups as people getting on and off the freeway try to jump across all those lanes to get away from the freeway. I wish it was a beautiful ballet but its a mess of disorganization that transportation planners try to remedy with more lanes and road paint that drivers ignore.

D Magazine's latest take on the latest I-30 plan is that the widening isn't as necessary as recommended, because in their view, I-30's traffic count hasn't really increased enough for adding more lanes.

The traffic count will get larger if they build what they have proposed because more highway creates more gridlock. Induced demand is created and it does nothing to increase tax revenues for the area adjacent to the freeway. Creating more lanes creates the gridlock. It has been proven in multiple studies at this point but it's not what most people want to hear because they are stuck on a highway trying to get from Downtown Dallas to Rockwall in 15 mins and an open lane sounds good when you see traffic backed up for miles.

It's like telling an overweight high cholesterol person to get a bigger belt when the old one doesn't fit anymore. It does nothing to acknowledge the real issue but treats a symptom that doesn't affect the actual problem. I do acknowledge that most people in this country treat their ailments this way and most problems this way cause treating the symptom is easier than dealing with the problem. Its also not the most sustainable solution because it costs more.

The value of increasing capacity isn't in decreasing congestion. It's in the increased capacity itself. If you double the capacity of a congested road you might not get anyone to their destination any faster, but you get twice as many people and good through there in the same amount of time. And you don't think that's a good thing?

"Induced demand": Meaningless term from folks who failed Economics 101.

We have a massive influx of people moving to the metro by the day. Our freeways are congested. We have painfully limited transit that is inefficient. People really like their cars. Widening the freeway is inevitable. But it's a temporary fix.

Time and again it's been empirically shown that expanding roadways leads to ever more traffic and congestion, in addition to killing neighborhoods and polluting the environment. Really hope recent developments signal a sea change in how this city thinks about and fights for a proper transportation mix.

jetnd87 wrote:Time and again it's been empirically shown that expanding roadways leads to ever more traffic and congestion, in addition to killing neighborhoods and polluting the environment. Really hope recent developments signal a sea change in how this city thinks about and fights for a proper transportation mix.

Lazily cherry picking one correlation is not "empirically showing" anything. The added traffic post-freeway expansion is the result of economic growth, spurred on by additional capacity for workers, customers, and delivery trucks to get from point A to B, generating economic activity. The traffic that "disappears" when a freeway is torn out represents curtailed economic activity now that workers, customers, and delivery trucks are forced into slower paths, with more time wasted on side streets, or in longer commutes via less direct bus/train routes. This impact is even harsher on families with kids. Meanwhile, the loudest cheerleaders for freeway tearouts are wealthier than average, childless, and can afford to locate themselves within walking distance of work and pay a premium for food and sundries instead of going to Walmart like the vast majority of metroplex residents on the opposite side of the income distribution.

The cities that claim to be freeway tearout "success stories" all have something that Dallas notably lacks - status as a major international tourism destination. Boston, NY, SF all were able to re-purpose former freeway land into a tourist attraction in itself, and the utter gridlock on the remaining roads (ask any SF resident about rush hour) is so awful that no tourist would even consider renting a car. Tourists (being on vacation) don't realize the awfulness of having to use transit for every single errand, 365 days of the year, so when they come back home all they talk about is how convenient it was to get between their hotel downtown and all the major tourist attractions on a $15 transit day pass. If tourists had to squeeze in a trip to the doctor's office after picking the kids up from school and grab groceries on the way home, they'd have a different perception of SF.

Also, someone needs to smack the Dallas city council with a rolled up newspaper until they understand that if they want something, they need to pay for it. All this bravado and strong-arming TxDOT and DART is getting tiresome.

Surely you're not advocating for continuing to separate and strangle the city's neighborhoods with even bigger roads? Would you support expansion but moving highway below grade to reunify the surrounding areas?

I hear your above points, especially w.r.t. families and income inequality. That being said, ever-expanding roadways incentivize and at minimum support sprawl, which in turn requires automobiles (for people who can't afford them), which spurs more roadway demand. I don't buy that decreased traffic in those cities that removed highways suggests decreased economic activity...

My chief concern with I-30 (and 345) is the deleterious effect these highways have had on our urban community (neighborhoods, land values, lack of motivation for public transpo). Freeways were never meant to intrude into the urban core b/c at-grade / above-grade highways designed for fast speeds choke off pedestrian life and don't encourage economic or social activity on the lands used by the roadways.

jetnd87 wrote:Surely you're not advocating for continuing to separate and strangle the city's neighborhoods with even bigger roads? Would you support expansion but moving highway below grade to reunify the surrounding areas?

Sunken/decked freeways are good, but we shouldn't assume that plopping them in south and east Dallas will magically create the same activity as KWP. So much of the buzz at KWP is astroturfed with donor money- have those same donors offered to ante up for I-30/I-35W deck park programming/security/amenities?

Why not rebuild elevated freeways with commercial space underneath the road deck? Surely something like the Vauxhall rail viaduct in London would appeal to the Deep Ellum crowd with space for clubs, shops, and restaurants... (obviously not exactly like this, but you get the idea)

jetnd87 wrote:I hear your above points, especially w.r.t. families and income inequality. That being said, ever-expanding roadways incentivize and at minimum support sprawl, which in turn requires automobiles (for people who can't afford them), which spurs more roadway demand. I don't buy that decreased traffic in those cities that removed highways suggests decreased economic activity...

My chief concern with I-30 (and 345) is the deleterious effect these highways have had on our urban community (neighborhoods, land values, lack of motivation for public transpo). Freeways were never meant to intrude into the urban core b/c at-grade / above-grade highways designed for fast speeds choke off pedestrian life and don't encourage economic or social activity on the lands used by the roadways.

Suburban sprawl exists because of high land values in the urban core. In the 50s-2000s, it was generally middle to upper class people moving out where land was cheap and they could buy more house on more land for the same money. The trend in the last couple decades has reversed and now you see middle and upper middle class people moving into Uptown/Oak Lawn/Bishop Arts/Deep Ellum because those areas were cheap compared to North Dallas, Plano, etc. But the outer burbs aren't getting any cheaper because of the huge influx of people from CA. If removing freeways raises land values, that will continue the trend of increased rents or home prices, pushing the poor out of East Dallas to somewhere else, but it won't be close to the urban core- those neighborhoods are all gentrifying too. Even if the city steps in to add rent-controlled or public housing, that comes out of the property tax revenues they collect.

As for the expense of a car, yes, the monthly cash cost of owning a car can be a lot, but it doesn't take into account the cost of one's time. If I'm having to leave at 5:30 AM, commute for 2-3 hours to work each way, and get home at 7-8 PM, that has an intangible effect on health & wellbeing, never mind the potential costs for childcare, emergency trips, or other necessary errands. Driving 1 hour in traffic may sound terrible to a white-collar office worker, and they'd probably look into moving closer to work, but many in the industrial or service industries don't have that luxury of relocating every time they change jobs. Being able to commute to work in 1 hour by car is a huge time savings, plus they can stop along the way to run errands without messing up bus or train connections.